A Joyous Celebration of Pink

 

3/30/25 UW Quad

Although USk Seattle meets at the University of Washington Quad every spring to sketch the glorious cherry trees, this year felt very different to me. Even the heavy crowds on a dry Sunday morning didn’t bother me as much as they sometimes do. With so much disgusting “leadership” going on in our country, and tragedy, horror and devastation elsewhere in the world, it was truly uplifting to be part of this joyous celebration of nature. Everyone seemed so happy! It was impossible to walk among those trees, even bumping into each other, without feeling a bond with humanity: All of us brought together by tiny pink blossoms.

Thank you, brilliant cherry trees, for giving us such joy.

At upper left, I tried to show some cosplay characters being photographed, but my sketch doesn't show them well. See photo below for what they actually looked like.

Technical notes: The past several years, I have used the Quad cherry trees outing to try various media, hoping to find the one that might help me successfully convey the billowing clouds of very pale pink (nearly white, actually) blossoms. As if the subject matter weren’t challenging enough, I wanted to add to the torture with uncertain media. Watercolor, gouache, dry colored pencils, acrylic markers, water-soluble crayons and blocks – you name it, I’ve tried it, usually with frustration and disappointment.

This year I decided to end the masochism and went back to basics: My favorite Pentel Pocket Brush Pen with a Derwent Inktense pencil (and a gray Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Big Brush Pen for contextual elements that I want to fade into the background). Familiar, reliable, satisfying in their simplicity.

These are the characters I saw being photographed. In addition, several groups of choreographed teenagers were being video'd, probably for their TikTok channels.

So much exuberance everywhere!